Research
Dissertation
“LGBT People’s Sense of Linked Fate: Belonging or Utility?”
Do LGBT people have a sense of linked fate? If so, is it experienced across subgroups and what are the mechanisms for LGBT people’s sense of linked fate? Linked fate is the sense that what happens to one’s group will affect one directly. My dissertation uses a combination of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods approaches to find evidence of LGBT people’s sense of linked fate, conceptualize a unique theoretical framework, and develop a novel measurement for LGBT people’s sense of linked fate. I argue that LGBT people’s sense of linked fate is a function of both belonging and utility. The LGBT community’s unique historic and contemporary experiences of social, political, and cultural stigmatization and exclusion, and LGBT people’s sense of belonging within the LGBT community.
Manuscripts
Hales, Kay & Riggle, Ellen. Under review. “One LGBT Community or Many: Linked Fate in LGBT People.”
While the LGBT community is often referred to as a monolith, research suggests that it may be separate subgroups under one umbrella. Linked fate is the sense that what happens to one member of a group will affect all other group members with consequences for political behaviors. While research on racial identity groups suggests that members often feel a sense of linked fate with other group members, but this research has not been generalized or explored in the LGBT community. This study empirically explores whether there is a sense of linked fate in the LGBT community using a mixed-methods approach to analyze data from an online survey. We also explore whether a sense of linked fate is associated with group-based policy preferences. Findings suggest that LGBT people do feel a sense of linked fate with other LGBT people despite differences that exist within the subgroups. The qualitative results suggests that LGBT people’s sense of linked fate is rooted in both societal ostracization and a sense of belonging in the LGBT community. This study also suggests that a sense of linked fate through LGBT identity may influence group-based policy preferences. These results argue for the importance of studying the LGBT community as an identity group in political behavior while acknowledging distinctions between subgroups
Hales, Kay. Under review. “A Qualitative Approach to Understanding LGBT People’s Sense of Linked Fate.”
How do LGBT people experience, conceptualize, and understand linked fate? The literature has primarily focused, both methodologically and theoretically, on Black Americans’ sense of linked fate, leaving a gap in our understanding of LGBT people’s sense of linked fate. Using reflexive phenomenological thematic analysis on data collected in 2023 from semi-structured interviews with 15 self-identifying LGBT people, three broad themes were identified: Contextualization, Belonging, and Utility. The results suggest that LGBT people’s sense of linked fate is rooted in their unique, shared experiences of social, political, and cultural stigmatization and exclusion, and their sense of belonging in the LGBT community. The results offer insights into how LGBT people’s political behavior may be driven by communal perspectives and feelings, and the role of LGBT people’s historic and contemporary experiences of ostracism shape LGBT people’s social cognition and behaviors. Findings have implications for LGBT people’s political activism and ability to collectively respond to social and political attacks on LGBT people’s rights.
Masterson, James, Wu, Jingwen, and Hales, Kay. Under review. “The Past and Future: Partisanship and Economic Evaluations of Presidential Elections.”
Evaluating incumbent performance at the polls is crucial for democratic accountability, with retrospective and prospective voting theories long debated in the literature. This paper argues that voters are more likely to use retrospective cues when choosing a candidate if there is a clear incumbent, while prospective cues become more influential when no clear incumbent is running, particularly after an 8-year presidential term. The study examines U.S. presidential elections from 2004 to 2016 using ANES datasets, demonstrating that voters consistently apply retrospective voting. However, retrospective cues have a significantly greater impact on voting decisions when an incumbent is seeking reelection. Our findings indicate that voters attribute successes and failures directly to the incumbent, making past performance a stronger determinant of vote choice in elections with a clear incumbent. This analysis underscores the importance of incumbent performance in shaping electoral outcomes and provides insights into voter behavior under varying electoral circumstances.
Working Papers
Hales, Kay. “Scale Development and Validation of the LGBT Linked Fate (LGBT-LF) Scale.”
Hales, Kay. ”Representing the Advantaged: State Legislative Responsiveness to White Identity.”
Hales, Kay. ”Modeling Small-Area Estimates of White Identity through Bayesian Multilevel Modeling with Variational Approximation.”